


Gluttony (In Place of Pride)

by Half_SubmergedinPurgatory



Series: TG Prompt Collection [41]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Amoneki if you squint, Angst, Conspiracy Theory for Super Strong Humans, Other, Prompt Fic, Sentient Arata Armour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 11:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11850792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory/pseuds/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory
Summary: “Are you going to eat that?”Kaneki Ken asked him (smiling the same pained way he had when Amon saw him last). The tone, the situation, the scent in his nose were all so desperately familiar and terribly wrong that Amon curled in on himself.“I don’t want to eat anymore…”





	1. Chapter 1

Ever since escaping the Aogiri compound, Amon had been slowly starving to death. Ghoul meat could only carry one so far and his continued penchant for ‘sampling’ human food ( _a futile hope for days long gone_ ) helped him lose more nutrients than he gained. Arata, as he had taken to calling his armour, was also a hungry beast.   
  
It seemed to like ghoul meat.   
  
It liked his blood more ( _though…sometimes it felt like it was taking less. Almost like it approved of his decisions. He didn’t like to think of the points it melded to his skin or the soft male voice he heard in his dream_ ).   
  
Kurona told him on countless occasions that,   
  
“The hunger will get bad, Papa.”  
  
And he’d responded,  
  
“It already is. I can hold out.”  
  
Just as many times.  
  
Amon was a man who prided himself on self-control and discipline. He was certain that he could avoid the inevitable ( _despite the dream-voice sighing unhappily in his ears or the way his armour pulled his legs towards certain people, mumbling “wicked, wicked”_ ).   
  
Despite the limits he set on himself, Amon let Kurona eat however much she needed. He justified it a thousand ways: she was a growing girl, she’d gotten used to a ghoul’s diet, he couldn’t control another person…  
  
He’d been a fool.   
  
He’d let himself get used to the scent of human meat. He let himself associate it with food.   
  
He hadn’t accounted for situations in which he’d lose control. 

* * *

Amon had been watching over the CCG for the past year. He had tried to stay away for so long ( _too risky, too likely to get caught_ ), but had ultimately failed. Akita was getting too involved in large risks and Aogiri was making too many big moves.   
  
Everyone was playing tug of war with  _ **someone**_  and Amon hadn’t been able to ignore the signs. Like a lamb to slaughter, he followed the traces of war, violence, and conspiracy.   
  
His foolish instinct led him to the Cochlea breakout instead of Rue Island ( _the name Ayato, an Aogiri general, rattled around in his brain, however he pushed it to the side_ ).

* * *

Amon usually avoided staying in gruesome scenes for too long ( _pools of blood called to him akin to a siren’s song_ ). However, the scene in Cochlea had alarm bells ringing in his head. Not only was Donato there…  
  
But an investigator had started it all.   
  
An investigator who was part-ghoul.   
  
The sick feeling that had been dogging his steps since he saved the half-ghoul girl ( _with her tiny body, massive kagune, and the scent of someone familiar on her CCG-issued clothing_ ) loomed over him. There were not many people who fell into that category. Not many ghoul sympathizers amongst humans.  
  
As he made his way to the bottom floors, Amon couldn’t help but feel he walked in the footsteps of the reaper. 

* * *

Deep enough that the alarms had stopped ringing and death was his only company, Amon realized his vision was blurring. He felt lightheaded and his footsteps were sluggish.   
  
He recognized his symptoms from blood-loss in the past. Arata was draining him ( _in preparation of…what?_ ). 

* * *

There was a ragtag gathering of ghouls fleeing one of the rooms in the epicentre of carnage. Electrical burns covered the floor as if an angry god had descended there. The terrified faces of the ghouls told Amon that might as well be the case.   
  
“Touka, wait! I smell d-”  
  
“That’s impossible, Ayato. Let’s go.”  
  
Two of the ghouls, ones who could pass for siblings, argued briefly, with the sister watching him carefully from the corner of her eye. Arata bit deeply into Amon’s arms in response.  
  
“I…I know him. He’s an  ** _investigator_** _ **!**_ ”   
  
A young brown-haired woman shouted, dragging the siblings and a grey-haired man behind her. She unveiled massive white and red wings…along with a tail…  
  
He recognized that chimera kagune ( _a deep pang of guilt blended with the nausea from bleeding out_ ).   
  
“I won’t hurt you.”  
  
Amon found himself rasping, holding his arms out in an awkward surrender. His mind was going fuzzy and blurry. He was pretty sure his speech was slurring.   
  
“I just need to reach him.”  
  
He blurted ( _the biting pain in his body lessened and Amon had to wonder if Arata approved_ ). It wasn’t a sentence that made sense and Amon expected the ghouls to attack immediately.  
  
The sister smiled at him ( _a bitter smile filled with painful understanding_ ).   
  
“Somebody needs to reach him, don’t they?”  
  
She responded, perhaps rhetorically, before tearing up. She grabbed onto the little girl ( _because that’s what she was to Amon, lost in guilt and memories_ ) and waved at the others.   
  
“We’re leaving…but make sure he doesn’t die.”  
  
She said to Amon, turning to pin him with an ominous stare over her shoulder,  
  
“It won’t make up for what you’ve done, though.”

* * *

Entering the room caused Amon’s vision to red out.  
  
Red on the ground.   
  
Red on a familiar face’s back, hands, legs…  
  
Torso…  
  
Face…  
  
All over Arima’s second favourite weapon.  
  
_**There had never been a fight he wanted to win quite so badly.**_

* * *

“What time is it, Koutarou-kun?”  
  
“Seven hours to heal, seven days to regenerate, seven times you should’ve died…”  
  
“So slow, Koutarou-kun.”  
  
“As someone who was fed in childhood, as the 0.001%, shouldn’t you be less of a failure?”  
  
“Floppy, floppy, floppy~”  
  
Her voice blended with his own, resounding over the ticking of a clock and the beating of his own heart.  
  
Amon couldn’t see, but those words guided him in lashing out wildly. Other words, in a voice he didn’t know, pushed him even harder.   
  
“Don’t let  _ **him**_  leave.”  
  
“I won’t let  _ **him**_  leave.”  
  
_**“He’ll take my children.”**_

* * *

Not even two people could stand up to a God.   
  
Not even a thousand.   
  
“If you would just eat, Koutarou-kun, maybe you could k-n-i-t yourself back together?”  
  
Eto’s voice murmured in his ear, her hands clawing at his Arata armour again and again ( _trying to cut it from his flesh, trying to eat it, trying to feed it_ ).   
  
There were bodies and flesh scattered around.   
  
_**He was hungry.**_

* * *

An elbow slammed into his head and Amon heard the wet noise of a blade sliding through flesh. A choked voice, bubbling with blood, reached his ears,  
  
“Are you going to eat that?”  
  
Kaneki Ken asked him ( _smiling the same pained way he had when Amon saw him last_ ). The tone, the situation, the scent in his nose were all so desperately familiar and terribly wrong that Amon curled in on himself.  
  
“I don’t want to eat anymore…”  
  
He whispered in horror.   
  
“I’m so happy you aren’t dead. I always wanted to see you again. Before I-”  
  
Kaneki’s voice cut off abruptly under the sound of concrete shattering under something heavy.   
  
“Arima, it’s rude to interrupt a conversation.”  
  
Kaneki’s voice was strained with false humour and a thread of genuine fear. The whites of his eyes were completely visible to Amon as they rolled desperately.   
  
“I said I’d kill them all,”  
  
Arima’s voice, chilling in its intent ( _Amon had never heard it sound quite like that_ ), seemingly rose from the ground itself.   
  
“I meant it.”  
  
Something changed in Kaneki’s face at that sentence. Whatever tension had been there, whatever doubt, dissolved. The expression that took its place was awful in its disappointment.   
  
“I can’t let you do that.”  
  
Kaneki flatly stated, his kagune expanding in size and red scales creeping over his neck. He looked like he’d been possessed.  
  
He was planning to die here. After Amon had finally…  
  
…  
  
There was still meat on the floor.   
  
There was still a chance to make wrongs right.   
  
…  
  
Human pride was such a worthless thing ( _ **Amon ate**_ ).


	2. Pay Your Dues

Amon hadn’t had human meat in years. He had thought, once it was finally in his mouth, that he’d be distracted by how good it tasted.   
  
The funny thing was, he couldn’t taste anything at all.   
  
He could only see Kaneki’s horrified face.   
  
He could only feel the time Arima was allowing him ( _he had never understood the man_ ) running out.   
  
“Wha- no…not for me. You couldn’t…it’s wrong…I-”  
  
Kaneki spluttered, the black beginning to bleed out of his eye and the awful look of determination faltering. He almost looked like the boy Amon had originally met ( _on that rainy night_ ) once again.   
  
Wiping his blood-soaked mouth, Amon felt his body healing faster than he remembered it doing in the past ( _”so slowwww, Koutarou~”_ ). His old scars remained and his three-fingered hand ached, but the open wounds Arata had been drinking from were fading.   
  
His momentary distraction allowed a whisper of a sweet flavour to gain his attention. The meat in Amon’s hand didn’t taste quite right. It was good, but there was something off about it…  
  
A little like ghoul meat?  
  
Suddenly, Amon snickered, heaving himself to his feet and readying a defensive stance as Arima’s patience wore thin. Kaneki Ken had accidentally repaid a years-old debt with some severed chunk of his shoulder.  
  
It was a little funny ( _Kurona would be worried about the nosedive his sense of humour had taken_ ).   
  
“I’m not going to let you die for me.”  
  
Amon shouted, snapping Kaneki’s attention back to the very important matter at hand.   
  
“I’m not going to let you die at all.”  
  
Amon continued, flexing his muscles underneath his armour worriedly. Arata seemed stronger than before. More cooperative? The armour weighed less than he remembered.   
  
However, Arima was going to be a fucking nightmare to fight. 

* * *

This fight was establishing a few things for Amon.   
  
1) Arata was most likely sentient. The armour pulled him away from more than one fatal blow before Amon even registered the strike. 

2) It had encountered Arima or someone who fought like him before.   
  
3) Kaneki Ken had been severely underestimating Arima earlier.   
  
4) Whatever they were, Arima had personal feelings for Kaneki.  
  
It was bizarre, terrifying, and Amon was beginning if everything to do with Kaneki Ken was crazy. Maybe it was some kind of universal law. 

* * *

They were going to have to run away. There were no other options. They couldn’t defeat Arima and reinforcements were likely on the way.  
  
Was running away from Arima even possible?  
  
Furtively, Amon glanced at Kaneki’s bleeding, somehow still standing, figure and closed the distance between them. Once their backs were pressed together, Kaneki looked at Amon from the corner of his eye.   
  
Amon would have to convince him to leave without saying it out loud. He had heard rumours about Arima’s hearing and he was pretty sure they weren’t exaggerated. He had to think…to think…  
  
Arima’s swipes made it hard to think. The blood in his mouth made it harder. The fact that  _ **Kaneki**_  was here made it hardest.   
  
“Just in case I don’t come back, I want you to know something.”  
  
Amon announced, staring fixedly forward  _(ignoring Kaneki’s full body flinch against his back_ ). With no plan in mind, he let his instincts carry him.  
  
“I’ve always wanted to listen to your story.”  
  
He definitely had Kaneki’s attention now ( _which was dangerous…he had to make this quick_ ).   
  
“ _ **Your story**_  - from start to finish. I want to know who you are. I want to know why you cried that night, why you let me live, why you fight…”  
  
The oddest thought came to him - the same one that he’d rolled over in his mind whenever Eto had visited his cell: had no one ever asked them this? Arima, Kaneki, Eto…  
  
As if they were characters in a story or figureheads of some movement.   
  
“I want  _ **you**_. I want you _ **alive**_.”   
  
Amon finished, finding an unexpected gap in Arima’s guard ( _that was blatantly untrustworthy but the only chance he’d get_ ).   
  
“If you don’t come back…?”  
  
Kaneki croaked. God, that voice nearly made him turn around ( _lonely, confused, achingly familiar_ ). He had to  _ **go**_  though.   
  
Amon took off at a run, aiming for the gap Arima had left ( _follow me, follow me, run please, he begged in his mind_ ). The sound of footfalls slamming into the pavement behind him and the chittering scratches of Kaneki’s kagune along the floor drove him faster.   
  
Praying in every language he knew to a God who had almost certainly abandoned him, Amon grabbed Kaneki’s hand and threw him forwards. 


End file.
